The Unlikely
by hidingunderblankets
Summary: When the Blood Hunter loses his remaining humanity, he fades into darkness. One sunrise, the Dark Child ventures into the last place any have seen him. [Most likely has some canon-goof]


"Hey you know Warwick, right? That werewolf Champion?"

"Of course I do, why wouldn't I?"

"Did you hear what happened to him?"

"I haven't heard anything about him since Urf."

"You can't be serious! Literally every ceremony's been talking about it!"

"Sorry I've been too busy with my Summoning studies. Well, what happened exactly?"

"From what I hear, he lost his humanity."

"He... what? I don't follow."

"Well that's what everyone's been calling it."

"So he lost his humanity? Didn't he already lose that when he drank that potion from Singed?"

"No, well kind of, but this time it sounds like he's gone full animal."

"So he pretty much acts like a wild animal now?"

"Yeah, I heard he stopped talking too."

"Alright, so when did this happen anyway?"

"I don't know, back when that really really bad storm hit us."

"So not too long ago?"

"Yes."

"Well where's he at now? Did they take him somewhere or?"

"Everyone's saying he just vanished the night he lost everything. He was behind this bar and he started howling. A couple of the people heard it and went out to investigate and they found him lying on the ground twitching like he was dying. Then he got up and tried to attack them."

"Twitch..."

"Huh?

"Uh forget it. So, they died, didn't they?"

"I don't know, nobody seems to care for what happened to them."

"Well what happened to Warwick?"

"He ran away. People have been saying they've seen him in the forests of the Voodoo Lands."

"Isn't that where Annie Hastur comes from?"

"She's the one with the giant stuffed bear, right?"

"You mean Tibbers?"

"Oh right!"

"And you're getting on me for not remembering my Champions."

"Whatever."

"Yeah sure, whatever."

"Anyway, yeah, she's from there. That's girl's downright disturbing."

"I think everyone knows that."

"Hey you know what I was thinking the other day?"

"What?"

"It's about Annie and Warwick. What if she made him her pet?"

"Annie taming Warwick..."

"Hey she tamed Tibbers, didn't she?"

"Well if she does, we'll see her carrying around one more stuffed animal around with her."

"I find it jarring to see how those two would work together."

"Alright in all seriousness, that probably won't ever happen."

"Can't a Summoner imagine?"

* * *

VooDoo Lands, morning, a dead forest.

A little girl with pink hair reaching her shoulders and green eyes, wearing a bright pink backpack and a holding a stitched-up teddy bear in hand, skipped down a light dirt trail that cut though the forest. She looked up and watched the sun creep through the canopy of overgrown branches. The ambient sounds of the wasteland's predators did not faze her and she held a smile on her face.

Looking ahead, she squinted her eyes at something coming up. She frolicked closer and stopped when she grew close enough. The path made a V on either side of a larger tree as it split in two. The girl looked down either path as she held her teddy bear in both arms, swaying and humming to herself.

She rose her hand and stuck out a finger. She moved it the left, then to the right, then back again.

"Eeny meeny miny..."

She stopped talking as she heard a twig snap close by. Her smile turned straight as she rose a brow and looked left. Before her, across the left path, rested a pile of collapsed trees netted by greyish vines.

"Hello?" she called as her voice echoed lightly throughout the trees. She listened closely and only heard the usual sounds of the forest.

Her grin returned as she shrugged her shoulders. She faced the two paths again and pointed her finger, pointing it over either path.

"Eeny meeny miny," the finger stopped on the path to the right, "moe!"

She skipped down the path as she giggled out loud. Looking down at her bear she tossed it up into the air and caught it as it fell back to Runeterra. She kept it up as she traveled down the path.

From beneath the fallen trees, through a dark hole in the pile of decay, a pair of red eyes shined in the darkness. Something peeked outside and watched the girl as she vanished behind the thickening trees. When she did, it growled as the eyes stopped glowing.

Out from a wider hole on the other side of the pile came a beast, half man and half wolf, his eyes a solid color of the same red they flickered as in the dark, bulky in build and ears pointed high. Light blue fur coated him and minimal golden armor speckled in brown and black and crimson covered parts of his body.

The creature rose to its scarred feet and looked in the direction of the girl. With a narrowing of his eyes he turned and ran the other way, entering the ocean of dead trees that made up the forest he and the child roamed.

The sun climbed higher into the sky as the day pushed on. Still on the same trail as before, the little girl with the stuffed animal kept going, still singing the same la la la as she did when the twig broke. Her face radiated more than it did when that happened. Every now and then she giggled in between her song.

The landscape around her grew darker with each step she took. The light gray trees around her when she entered slowly turned closer and closer to black, and the once ambient and distant sounds of the creatures living within the forest became less distant. A slight fog hazed the air and the path below her faded, blending in more with the ground as she covered more ground.

But the girl didn't notice any of these changes. Instead, she kept her attention on what lied ahead. In the near distance where her eyes didn't look, the wolf crept from tree to tree, constantly peeking out and watching her before she grew far enough from him and he swiftly sneaked around for another one.

Sometime later, when the trees got a bit darker and the fog picked up, she stopped singing and looked at her bear as it swung in her hand. She slowed down to a simple walk as she brought the toy up to her, holding it with both hands. Flipping it, she made it face her.

"Huh?" she asked it. She paused for a moment. "Are we there yet? No... Hey, stop whining, I'm carrying you!"

Not very far away, the same pair of red eyes from before lit up from beneath a heap of long-dead scrub. They watched the little human as she argued with her bear and held it up in the air threateningly.

Hidden inside the bush, the wolf with the blue fur crouched on a knee and a hand clutched the ground, digging into the dirt. The fingers of his free hand, decked out in sharp-tipped and bloodied "claws" slid on to each one, curled and arched. Under the breath escaping his ajar mouth came grumbles and gibberish.

"Where is it?" the girl asked it again. She and the stuffed animal stopped arguing. "I told you when we left!"

The wolf stopped his mumbling as his ears perks and his brows rose. As he watched the girl continue frolicking through the forest like before, he cracked a smile full of daggers.

He erected himself before stepping out of his hiding spot. Leaning out from behind the brush, he continued staring at the girl until as she slowly shrank from his sights. Up ahead lied a thicker patch of fog that the girl entered without caution, still singing and skipping as before.

Again, he ran off in another direction. As he stirred up the crunchy, black leaves that formed a sheet of itself over the part of the forest beneath his feet, he glanced at a large cliff with a dried waterfall in the middle of it. An ominous cluster of stygian clouds hovered over the ground up there as the faint sounds of thunder boomed from the storm.

* * *

Near the foot of the cliff, another thick patch of fog rested next to a clearing stretching from where the forest began to the wall of rock. Sunlight beamed down on it stronger than any other part of the forest. The faint sounds of creatures grew even more clearer and the path dissolved, leaving just the raw forest floor.

A puny and frolicsome silhouette passed through the patch of fog as it whistled brokenly. Still trekking through the forest, the little girl made her way through the fog, not phased at all by the lack of visibility. She kept singing, she kept laughing, and she still smiled as her eyes brimmed with a flare in them.

She looked down at her bear again and watched the toy swing in her grasp.

"Are we there yet?" she said. "Well since you asked nicely this time..."

Looking forward and narrowing her eyes, she noticed a sudden rise in clarity up ahead. She gushed in excitement as she reached it. When she did, her eyes forced shut for a moment as her arm shielded her face. She found herself in the sun's spotlight, in the clearing where the fog suddenly stopped.

Upon opening her eyes again, she looked around her and smiled.

"We're here!"

The girl walked into the center of the clearing then dug into her backpack. She pulled out the few things inside it and set them out. She took the first item, a small plaid blanket, and spread it out across the ground. She grabbed her bear and sat it on one side of the blanket. She dug into her pack again and removed a handful of small ivory cups, plates, and a teapot sealed shut with a cork plugging the snout. One piece at a time, she laid them out evenly across the blanket; the teapot went in the middle and the cups sat before her and her toy, all atop their own plate.

When she finished setting everything up, she sat down on the other side of the blanket, facing her bear. She reached for the teapot and sat it in her lap. Using her strength she gripped the cork and tugged at it. It didn't work, making her use her teeth to pull it off. She did get if off and poured its contents into her cup – tea.

Sitting down again she grasped the handle of her cup, she took a sip of the drink. Her smile vanished again as she looked down at the stuff.

"Yuck, it's not warm!" she whined.

In spite of her drink losing its heat, she continued drinking it anyway. Her teddy bear sat before an empty cup at first before she apologized to it, explain hat she forgot about his cup, and poured some of the tea into it. Together the two sat in the clearing, enjoying their tea party and chatting as the girl said or inquired something to the bear.

Sometime into their party, a group of tiny, turtle-like creatures with many eyes passed by their blanket in a zigzag line. The girl watched them crawl by until she saw one of them, broken away from the rest of the herd and eying her. She rose to her feet and bent over slightly, holding her knees as she giggled.

"Hi, little aminal! You want to play with me?" she asked it. The critter didn't move and kept staring up at the human looking down at it.

She stood straight as she cupped her hand. In her palm formed a fire that didn't harm her as it burned over her skin. She turned her hand towards the creature as she stretched her arm out. With a sinister smirk, she cast the flame at the animal, setting it on fire. The animal flipped on its back and curled up with a single yip. The girl laughed as the flames consumed it.

Inside the fog still lingering around the trees, the wolf leaned to his side and peeked out. Through the fog he saw the little girl laughing as she watched something burn and she stood next to her blanket.

When the girl stopped laughing she looked straight forward.

"That was fun!" she cheered. Her excitement turned to wonder as she spotted the wolf in the fog, a gray figure shrouded by the patch with his lambent red eyes and looking at her too. She smiled again.

She returned to the blanket while keeping her eyes on the wolf and grabbed her stuffed animal by an arm. Holding it with both arms wrapped around it, she began walking towards the beast, stopping where the trees and the clear land met.

"Hey you!" she called.

She got no answer and he continued staring at her. Her head cocked.

"Want to join me and bear Tibbers' tea party? It'll be fun!"

Once again, the wolf gave her no response as he remained stiff as a board.

"What's the matter, scared?' she taunted as she chuckled, then looked down at her bear. "He's a scaredy cat... scaredy cat, scaredy cat, scaredy cat!"

When she looked up, she noticed that the wolf no longer stood behind the tree. Looking around, she didn't see him anywhere.

"Aw!"

Her ears perked at extremely nearby sounds of snarling. Turning her head left she found the wolf barreling right at her. Just in the nick of time she ducked and he just flew over her, rolling across the ground when he collided with it. But he stopped himself from this and he rose back up, having one arm hold him up as the claws of his other hand dug into the soil again. The girl faced the wolf with another ball of fire ready to launch in her risen hand. She grinned as her other hand went at her hips. The monster growled at her with greater lucidity in his eyes.

"Hi, Warwick! You've been gone since forever. Do you still remember me?" she asked. The wolf, Warwick, spoke more nonsense that began forming something as it pieced together.

"A-an-a-n-a... Annie..."

"You do remember me!" the girl, Annie, cheered. "Do you want to join me and Tibbers' tea party?"

She waited for an answer but once again didn't receive one as Warwick stared at the girl in complete silence again with a small slouch. His hand rose as he displayed his claws. Annie noticed it and looked at the messy golden weapons slipped over his fingers.

"What, cat got your tongue?" she joked as she laughed to her own words.

Warwick began a lunge for Annie. As he leaped he roared, grabbing her attention. The girl's eyes grew wide as the beast flew towards her with his arms stretched out.

Annie cracked a grin as a circle of fire spun upwards and shielded her. The claws of Warwick's right hand hit the barrier and he stopped. In a small hole in the fire he saw Annie glaring at him. He hopped back and watched as the fire fizzled out and revealed unharmed Annie. She rose her arm and in her hand formed another fire.

"Oh I get it! You want to play, don't you?" she asked him, receiving a sharp and yellowed smile from Warwick. "Yay, this will be fun!"

The faces of both Annie and Warwick turned to the skies as they heard the sharp, loud, and echoing sound of thunder. The storm, now much closer, struck the upper ground with a bolt of lightning. After that, a wave of them surged through the clouds.

Annie looked back at Warwick.

"Uh-oh, we'll have to be fast!" she told him. Swinging her arm, the ball of fire in her hand flew towards Warwick. "Ladies first!"

Warwick dodged Annie's attack with a hop to the side. He watched the fire burn the ground it landed on on, black and smoking. He heard Annie laugh and turned his head towards her, finding more balls of the spell darting straight for him.

One by one he dodged the flames as Annie flung them at him with ease, jovial as she giggled menacingly. With each ball that missed him, Warwick inched closer and closer to Annie again. Only a couple of feet away now, Warwick dodged one last attack before charging forward and leaped at Annie once more.

Unsurprised by his move, Annie stretched both arms out while dropping her bear Tibbers and cast a cone of fire at the wolf. When he soared just over the inferno, she ducked again with a smile. However, it vanished as one of Warwick's toe claws scraped her across her noggin, cutting through her cat ears and shallowly into her flesh. Warwick rolled across the ground and crashed into a lone tree in the clearing on his back.

"Ow!" she cried as she stood up and touched her fresh wound with her finger. Looking at it, he found it covered in a bright red and light sheet of blood. She took her cat ears off her head and examined them, noticing the rip Warwick left in it. "Hey!"

Standing back up, Warwick saw the cut he inflicted on Annie's head, a strand of red in her deep pink hair. Staring at it, his nose twitched. He sniffed the air, first softly, and then he began virtually snorting it into his nostrils.

"I got these for my birthday too!" said Annie as she looked down at her torn cat ears angrily.

Hearing another growl, Annie rose her head and faced the beast. His eyes glowed brightly once again. His fingers throbbed and his body shook as his growling grew into a progressing roar and he grunted and heaved deeply in between.

Annie looked down at Tibbers, who rested on the ground on his back.

"What? He smells blood?" she asked the bear.

In a split second, Warwick launched from where he stood and bolted towards Annie, dropping to all fours. Feral, he let out one more roar as a howl slipped through as well. He slobbered greatly and it flew out of his widely opened jaws.

The irritated Annie watched him dash for her. Reaching for Tibbers with her empty hand while keeping her eyes on Warwick, she snatched him off the ground by a leg. With an underhand throw and a curl of her leg, she slung her toy at the wolf. Close to hitting him in the face, Warwick rose an arm and slashed at it. Annie smirked again as his claws and her bear touched.

In a blaze that shot from the ground up, Warwick froze in his tracks as a larger hand clutched his. Looking up, he found before him a Shadow Bear with burning eyes and thick stitches sewn down his chest. As the wolf made a face of fear and Tibbers' eyes pierced through his, Annie shouted a battle cry.

"Tibbers!"

Tibbers kicked Warwick in the chest, sending him flying across the ground yet again and letting out a canine cry of agony. He landed on his side, twitching again but this time in pain. He struggled as he rose himself up enough and looked forward. When he did, he found Tibbers standing right before him, towering over the wolf. Warwick growled at him and rose to his feet. His claws out, he went for a slash, but Tibbers intercepted. In defense, the bear gave Warwick an uppercut, sending him flying into the air. Watching from afar, Annie cheered and cackled.

"Toasty!" she taunted.

When Warwick fell back to the ground he laid there on his back, sprawled out. His eyes laid shut and his mouth opened widely. His armor now had dents in it, especially the pieces over his chest, and blood escaped his nose and what didn't sink into his fur ran down his face.

Annie and Tibbers approached their defeated opponent. Annie stood over Warwick while Tibbers stood a few steps back, watching his master as she knelt and gazed at the wolf. A couple of minutes ticked by in complete silence.

Another boom of thunder made Tibbers look at the sky. The storm clouds now hovered over him and the others. A weeping wind picked up and made some of the trees sway. Flashes of light shot out in the distance.

Tibbers looked at Annie, who still had her focus on Warwick. The Shadow Bear made a groan that caught her attention and had her look back at him. He pointed to his right towards the cliff.

"I know we have to go. I just want to do something!" she pardoned as she faced Warwick again. Tibbers stared at Annie as she rose her hand. Purple energy formed in her hand, glowing like a beacon. "You wanted a new playmate, right?"

Tibbers' eyes widened a bit at her sentence. He watched as the energy grew in size and brightness. Annie grinned fiendishly as the flare in her eyes returned, not counting her eyes reflecting the light from her spell. The energy fired into Warwick and engulfed him in a flash. She giggled and as the light grew to blinding strength and Warwick's body turned into a solid mass of a dark substance.

Overhead, more lightning touched down as another massive crackle of thunder soared across the Voodoo Lands. The flash grew visible from beyond the forest and scaring crows that flew away in their flocks. The light shined strong before abruptly dying.

* * *

Days later, the same forest with an overcast sky.

In one part of the forest sat a clearing for a small, beaten-up shack. Bones dangled from the branches of nearby trees. The holes craved into them created a chime-like sound as the wind blew through them and they tapped one another. Thick, dark smoke rose out from the chimney as lights that changed from cyan to violet to maize flickered through the small window on the front of the shack.

Into the yard skipped Annie, smiling as always. As she passed the bones she watched them touch each other and make their dull but eerie sound. Moving on she closed in on the shack. Standing in front of it, she noticed the colorful lights. Placing a finger to her chin and humming out of thought, she examined her surroundings.

She found the ribs of a large animal placed under the trees. She approached it and looked at the bones closer. Setting Tibbers aside and grabbing on to the side of it, she stepped back and pulled it. After giving it a try, it moved with no problem at all. She smiled. Pulling it more, she brought it over to the window and pressed it against the wall. She went for Tibbers, picked the bear up, then returned to the ribs.

She climbed on top of them and peered into the window. Looking into the shack she saw a dark-skinned man with a bone stabbed through his nose and a top hat on his head. He sat before a circular table with his hands out, channeling a stream of magenta power though either palm and connecting to an orb on the table. The man held a face of strong concentration as he filled the ball with his magic.

Annie watched as the energy made the ball shake. As he sent more of his magic into it, tribal symbols began forming across the surface in a lighter color from the orb itself. The man examined the symbols closely as more manifested across it.

"Yes... yes, just as I suspected," he said to himself.

Annie kept watching quietly until she felt her foot drop and she heard a rib crack. Looking down, she found her leg going through a hole in the line of bones.

"Oopsies," she said.

The crack caused the man in the hat to jerk his head to the window. He found Annie facing down at something then look up and smile at him. His eyes on her, the ball began cracking. The sounds of each made the man turned back to it, and he watched as it cracked and cracked until it burst and fell on to the wooden floor. Annie grew surprised at the shatter of the orb.

Fumed, the man growled as he rose from his chair. Annie watched as he stomped his way to door, grabbing a boney staff leaning against the wall as he did so. She turned to the door as the man kicked it open and exited, glaring the girl down as he placed the bottom of his staff against the ground.

"Tabu warned you about disturbing me, Dark Child," he reminded her grimly as he pointed his staff at her. "This is the last straw."

"Does that mean we're going to have a play-date?" Annie asked Tabu with an evil smirk on her face. She hopped off the bones and stepped outwards a bit.

"Oh, Tabu will give you a play-date you'll never forget," Tabu answered as he spun his staff in his hand. "By the way, don't try and use that Shadow Bear on Tabu if that's what you intend to do. As said before, Tabu knows everything about them."

"That's okay," Annie assured Tabu as she reached sat Tibbers down again and reached into her backpack for something. "I wanted to use my new pet anyway!"

Tabu rose his brow at Annie as he assumed a slight defensive stance.

"New pet?" he inquired.

Out of her backpack, clutched by Annie's hands, came a plush toy of a light blue werewolf with red eyes and golden armor and his tongue sticking out. She held it with both of her hands and she looked at it with a smile. She embraced it happily.

"It's time to play!" she told him. She looked up at Tabu, who still held his stance. She tossed her stuffed wolf into the air, the both of them watching it soar up and suddenly explode in blue fire. Something emerged from it and crashed into the ground as it fell.

Tabu took a step back as he found a monster before him – a blue werewolf resembling the toy Annie just slung. Warwick, with cleaner armor, rose up and shifted his focus from downwards to Tabu as he gave him daggers. The man stood shocked.

"What the –"

From behind Warwick, Annie pointed forward and grabbed Tibbers again.

"Go get him, Warwick!" she ordered.

Warwick growled at his enemy as his eyes glowed brightly and he readied his claws. Tabu gave him a similar look as he held his staff with both hands, ready to swing.

"Anything to say yourself before we begin?" Tabu asked Warwick. Buried within growling, the beast answered back.

"Let's... make... this... fun."


End file.
